If you’re looking for a stylish and exquisite Valentine’s gift for yourself or your loved one, you’ll quickly fall in love with the Alfa pizza oven. Handcrafted in Italy, Alfa ovens honor their contemporary roots with an added modern flair.
Alfa has left a lasting impression on the pizza industry by manufacturing one of the largest offerings of oven models and products, including the ultra-refined and powerful Allegro series. These pizza ovens work quickly, taking less than an hour to reach their pre-heat temperature. This means you can decide to fire up your oven on a whim before the Pens game or take your time and enjoy the cooking process with a glass of wine.
The most important aspect of an Alfa oven is that they come ready to use with no curing required. Curing is the process that removes any residual moisture from the oven. Your oven might seem completely dry after installation, but moisture pockets will typically need to be worked out with a slow initial fire. If you let the oven get too hot, too fast, the water will try to escape at once, potentially causing the oven dome to crack.
Curing can be a lengthy process that takes a lot of time, but without curing, you can save energy and spend more time making your favorite pies. Alfa ovens are ready to use immediately after unpackaging, so you can forget all about the tedious and tiresome assembly.
What are the Options?
There's an Alfa oven model out there for everyone—from cheese lovers to pizza aficionados to your Nona from Sicily, you can find an oven to match anyone’s culinary ambitiousness. Smaller units like the Ciao series are popular for patio cooking, and we mentioned the Allegro series which are the larger wood-fired models available in red and yellow.
There are chimney ovens for those who want to customize their cooking process, and eye-catching outdoor ovens in a copper finish for those who want to enjoy the traditional taste of cooking, grilling, and baking with the superior experience of a wood fire oven. Each oven model is designed for a specific lifestyle and your love for cooking (and pizza). They’re designed to last for years, so you can always share a slice, share a laugh, and share a memory.
What Sets Alfa Apart?
We’re not talking about any run-of-the-mill pizza oven—Alfa is a leading manufacturer of residential wood and gas-fired ovens for backyards and kitchens alike.
Forninox Technology
Traditional cooking methods paired with cutting-edge innovation, Alfa has developed its patented technology, Forninox. This technology helps each oven withstand the stress brought on from the intense heat and allows you to reach your desired cooking temperature using less fuel.
Despite a modern, stainless steel construction, Alfa stays true to the old-world brick cooking process when designing and manufacturing their ovens. Cooking techniques of old and new are combined for a process that is smooth as a fresh slice of mozzarella.
Heat Retention
Forninox technology is a game-changer, but it isn’t the only design feature intended to enhance the operation and ease-of-use of Alfa pizza ovens. Their outer dome shape retains heat and prevents hot air from escaping during the cooking process. The heat is trapped inside the dome to help your food cook evenly and thoroughly.
Alfa ovens are also installed with a refractory cement floor and ceramic fiber insulation to aid in the baking process. Your oven will heat quickly and stay hot for the duration of your cooking session.
Authentic Taste
A flashy, high-tech oven is great, but it doesn’t matter if your pizza doesn’t pass the taste test. Alfa ovens never sacrifice taste for technology. You can guarantee that authentic, wood-fired taste with every slice.
Your food is placed right next to the fire, so the smoky flavor you know and love shines through. If pizza isn’t your thing, you might want to go see a doctor and get yourself checked out, but Alfa ovens are versatile enough to handle almost any kind of entrée or dessert that you’d prepare in an oven. No matter what’s on the menu, a quick toast in the oven will infuse your favorite dish with the essence of Italy.
Flexible Built-in Models
If you already have a full-service outdoor kitchen, you might not be interested in a standalone pizza oven. Luckily, Alfa also offers several built-in oven options to bring the heart of Italy to your backyard.
The Alfa Cupolino oven is lightweight and easy to install, and with customizable size options, you can bake traditional Italian meals from pizza to roasts to decadent desserts. You can prepare three pizzas at a time and a large loaf of bread—just don’t forget the balsamic and olive oil for dipping.
These ovens heat quickly and cook effectively. It's an efficient and family-friendly way to add that wood-fired flavor to homemade pizza or any of your favorite dishes.
Considerations
Products are sold separately, but if you need oven accessories, you can shop for tables, pizza peels, oven brushes, barbecue trays, wood holders, and more.
It can be hard to choose your favorite Alfa oven, so here are a few buying considerations to help narrow your search:
1. Check your dimensions and measure your outdoor living area to see where the oven unit will fit.
2. Look through the design options to see if your Alfa oven would look best on your patio or installed in an established outdoor kitchen area. This also depends on how often you cook and how you plan to utilize the oven.
3. Shop for available colors. Decide if you prefer flashy colors or a simplistic finish.
4. Now you’re ready to shop. Pick your favorite oven, accessories, and utensil kits so you can get cooking.
Let’s Recap
Before you make a purchase, let’s recap the main features that give Alfa ovens an advantage over the competition.
1. Startup time is minimal; cooking is fast and effective.
2. Nothing beats wood-fired cooking.
3. Insulation and heat retention are second-to-none.
4. Alfa uses their own refractory bricks on the oven floor to soak up the heat and spread it evenly throughout the appliance.
5. Shutting down and cooling off is a breeze. Cover the opening and the flame is quickly extinguished. This allows you to reclaim the wood for a future meal, much like charcoal cooking.
Turn up the Heat
We understand not many people have experienced the luxury of a wood-burning oven, but it can certainly act as an adjunct cooking method to mimic the convenience of gas grilling. In the time it takes to properly cook a steak and moderate a gas barbecue, you can experience the fulfilling taste of wood smoke in the same amount of time.
One of our favorite Alfa ovens is the red Allegro top oven (FXALLE-LROA-T) because it has one of the largest oven floors to satisfy the needs of the most demanding cooks. Allegro is the largest oven in Alfa’s Forninox range, specifically designed to meet the daily needs of families big and small. With four casters for easy movement, large, collapsible shelves, a warming compartment, and a firewood holder, this oven comes with everything you need to pull off a successful meal and take your cooking to the next level.
If you’re ready to give the pizza parlor a run for its money, check out our entire catalog of outdoor pizza ovens and revisit some of the models highlighted in the article from Alfa. If you have questions or would like more information, chat with us online, give us a call, or visit us at Don’s Appliances.